The Urban Pantheist

This yellow bear Spilosoma virginica was in the back part of the yard, near the perennial beds.

The yellow bear looks like an all-yellow version of the more familiar wooly bear. Unless it's an individual that looks like an all-white wooly bear, or one that looks like an all-reddish brown wooly bear. This caterpillar has a wide range of possible coloration. As an adult, it's an almost all-white moth called a Virginia tiger moth. The species is widespread and a generalist, making it a fairly common caterpillar to come across.



Bonus jumping spider! This large male salticid circled the kitchen, high up on the walls.

These bagworm cases are all over the place--stuck to the exterior walls, on the window screens, and this one is on a snow shovel (which is still in the yard because...you know). I feel pretty good that this bagworm is Psyche casta

This is one of those things I've seen most of my life and never really wondered what it was. It took a little creative googling, but I'm fairly certain this is a case made by a caterpillar called Psyche casta, a little moth in the group called the bagworms. My eastern caterpillar guide and my garden insects guide both skipped this species, despite that it appears to be very common, and has an interesting life cycle. At least I think it does--there isn't a lot of information out there.

Presuming that it has a life cycle similar to related caterpillars, it constructs a case from plant material and silk. Psyche casta uses grass stems, which when dried and adhered together look like a tiny bundle of sticks. The caterpillar wanders about carrying this thing like a hermit crab, (or more like some kind of terrestrial caddis fly)eating vegetation. I think it is strange that I have never seen the caterpillar in this stage--there are lots of pictures online of bagworms poking their heads out of their refuges, but I've never encountered one. I think one of the reasons I've always ignored these things was that I didn't think there was an animal inside each one.

The caterpillar pupates inside the case, and if it is a male, it flies away. If it is a female, it doesn't grow wings, but stays inside the protection of the case. After mating, she keeps her eggs inside her body, where they will stay in relative safety for the winter. At some point, the female dies--is it before the winter or during? or is it not until her offspring hatch, and eat her body as their first meal? I haven't been able to determine it.

If you know more than I do (or know that any of what I have said above is wrong) please let me know.

Alexis found this Large Yellow Underwing Cutworm (Noctua pronuba while cleaning up the front garden. Too bad we don't have chickens yet, it would have made a nice snack for them.

Cutworms are moth larvae that sleep in the soil or leaf litter during the day, and wake at night to nibble the tender stems of young plants, cutting them to the ground. This cutworm species is native to Europe, but was discovered in North America in the late twentieth century. It overwinters in the caterpillar stage (which explains why such a large larva is already present in early spring) then metamorphoses into a large brown moth with yellow underwings. The moth is well-camouflaged when the underwings are covered, but it can expose them suddenly to startle predators.

This is a new species to the blog! It almost certainly is an urban species as well, but since we didn't do as much pawing through garden dirt before, it didn't appear when I was doing urban species lists. It feeds on almost any plant, including many urban species like dandelion, hawkweed, plantain, and violets.

A replica gypsy moth caterpillar hangs from a branch in the Riverway. Only 10 days left to enjoy the show!

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We went to Lost Pond Reservation on this gorgeous spring day and took some nature macros and such.
The dark outgrowths on the sticks at the top are the tent moth egg masses.

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Thanks to miz_geek and ankhanu for identifications and corrections!

We've been to this place twice, both times in weather in which most people wouldn't walk around the block. Yesterday: about 40 degrees, cold drizzle.

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Here Alexis has recorded me carefully regarding a Frangipani worm.( Read more... )